In an interview, Mr. Van Wachem said Mr. Huang had trouble finding a job when he first arrived in Canada. Desperate to find work so he could bring his son to Canada, he ended up in Port Alberni, B.C.

“One of the reasons he wanted to get into Canada, I think, was to get his son out of China and away from his ex- wife. I think that’s one of the things that was going on, too,” Mr. Van Wachem said.

He said Mr. Huang “always had some kind of woman on the go” and played three-dimensional chess. “He’s a pretty smart guy but he was an academic, put it that way. You’ve got to be able to use your information in a business-type way and he wasn’t that good at that.”

A client once commented on Mr. Huang’s outspoken support for China, he said. “We were building a yacht for an American guy at the time and the American guy said to me, ‘That guy’s a spy.’ We used to laugh. That’s exactly what his comment was, because of his political views. So I phoned that guy up yesterday and said, ‘You better go look at the news.’”

Mr. Van Wachem said Mr. Huang’s employment records at Alberni had been deleted but that he had worked for the company from 2001 until 2003 or 2004. “I don’t know much about his dad but I think his dad might have been a party member. I’m not sure. His dad worked at the shipyard in China.”

After five years in B.C., Mr. Huang moved to Waterdown, Ont., to work at the Lloyd’s office in nearby Burlington. He was not involved in the Arctic patrol ship project because he lacked the required security clearance.

On Nov. 25, he allegedly contacted the Chinese embassy in Ottawa about passing on information, according to sources. The approach was detected by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, which notified the RCMP.

A hastily prepared undercover operation called Project Seascape unfolded in Toronto last Saturday, and police allegedly caught Mr. Huang discussing relaying sensitive documents on the government ship program. He was arrested that afternoon in Burlington.

He has been charged under the Security of Information Act with two counts of attempting to “communicate to a foreign entity” information that the Canadian government “is taking measures to safeguard.”

Several sources said Mr. Huang was unhappy about being excluded from the patrol vessel project. Police said he had no known accomplices and this was not a case of “state-sponsored” espionage.

The Chinese government denied Monday that Mr. Huang had furnished any documents. “The remarks saying that a Canadian-Chinese male provided the Chinese government with confidential information is totally groundless,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, told reporters.

At a court appearance Wednesday morning, Mr. Huang looked tired and glum as he stood in the prisoner’s box. His case was put over until Monday. Defence lawyer John Lee said he needed more time to prepare for a bail hearing but declined to comment on Mr. Huang.